


we couldn't bring the columns down

by karasunonolibero



Series: haikyuu song fics [8]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Sort of? - Freeform, idk it's 1600 words of oikawa being upset about the end of season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23160304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karasunonolibero/pseuds/karasunonolibero
Summary: Being angry is easy. He can be angry about the loss and let people pass it off as his usual dramatics or pettiness. He can practically hear Iwaizumi say, “Oikawa’s just being a brat again,” like he has before about so many things.Because Oikawa Tooruismany things. He is angry and he is petty and he is a perfectionist and he is determined and he is a leader and he is proud, so painfully proud, and he is, when all is said and done, eighteen years old.He is eighteen years old, and he’s far too young to feel like this is the end of the road for him, but that’s what it feels like.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: haikyuu song fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1479425
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	we couldn't bring the columns down

**Author's Note:**

> sort of a bit inspired by samson by regina spektor—that song just _screams_ iwaoi to me, especially this bit at the end:
> 
> _oh, we couldn't bring the columns down  
>  yeah we couldn't destroy a single one  
> and the history books forgot about us  
> and the bible didn't mention us, not even once_
> 
> so...then i wrote this.

There’s nothing. Oikawa is nothing. All of it, everything he’s poured his heart and soul and tears and late nights into…over in less than a second.

The moment they lose is going to haunt him for the rest of his life. The blur of orange rising above the net. The stretch of Kindaichi’s hands for the block. The ache in his thighs as he lunged for the receive. The sickening sound of the ball hitting the floor.

He takes a slice of comfort in the fact that no one will talk about it. No one will talk about how it was Oikawa’s flubbed receive that cost them the game, and no one will really give him—or Aoba Johsai at all—a second thought.Because history is written by the victors, so they say, and they are not the victors here. Their words and their feelings and their loss and the _pain_ are nothing to the history books, not when Karasuno’s gone on to beat out Shiratorizawa to clinch a spot at nationals in a dramatic renaissance. With a story like that, who’d remember the team they beat in the _semifinals_ to get there? No one. And that’s how Oikawa wants to keep it.

He can’t believe he wants no one to remember him. But he’s already wondering how he’ll look himself in the mirror when he’s this empty, this angry.

Being angry is easy. He can be angry about the loss and let people pass it off as his usual dramatics or pettiness. He can practically hear Iwaizumi say, “Oikawa’s just being a brat again,” like he has before about so many things.

Because Oikawa Tooru _is_ many things. He is angry and he is petty and he is a perfectionist and he is determined and he is a leader and he is proud, so painfully proud, and he is, when all is said and done, eighteen years old.

He is eighteen years old, and he’s far too young to feel like this is the end of the road for him, but that’s what it feels like.

There was a road to nationals. He knows the beginning of it well, knows how it feels to spend months preparing to take that first step, and what it feels like with each modicum of progress. And he knows the joy of conquering every obstacle in his path, until he meets an obstacle he can’t finesse his way around. There’s always one, and it’s always a damn genius.

And that’s what fucking gets him. It’s _always_ a damn genius, someone who just seems to have athletic talent coded into their genes. Meanwhile, Oikawa’s trained so hard to be the best he can that his knee’s in a brace now. One wrong landing, one bad jump, and he could kiss his volleyball career goodbye.

It already feels like he has.

He didn’t have offers, not yet, but he almost certainly won’t now. No university is going to offer a sports scholarship to a kid who couldn’t even bring his team to the prefectural finals, let alone nationals. He has his grades, at least, and those are sure to get him in most anywhere, so Iwaizumi tells him to focus on that. Oikawa can try. He vows to apply himself to his academics, now that there’s no more volleyball to play—he’ll pass the team onto the second-years and let Yahaba get used to his new captain duties—but classes will be dull now, because there’s nothing waiting for him on the other side of the school bell. He’ll just gather up his books and walk home with Iwaizumi and put on his Aoba Johsai jacket and pretend his days of high school volleyball aren’t slipping away from him like sand through his fingers.

He wishes he could turn the hourglass over, start again, give himself more time. Another chance.

Another chance, another chance, another chance. And now he’s out of chances. He’s died in a video game on his last life, except there’s no option to restart from his last save point.

The first day back at school after they lose is the hardest. Oikawa has never been a morning person, but he still wakes up before the sun, his body telling him he’s got to get to school to open the club room, and maybe give himself some time to practice before the others get there. Until he remembers that’s not his job anymore. The team isn’t his anymore. There are no more games left to play. He’s bid them goodbye already, even cried about it too, and they all cried with him.

There’s no reason for him to be awake right now. He drags himself out of bed anyway.

The gym lights are off, the club room locked. He slips the key into the lock and lets himself in, breathing in the familiar air of the club room. There are the lockers with their names on them, the fronts all decorated—or not—to their user’s liking. His own, next to Iwaizumi’s, is covered in alien stickers that’ll be a pain to try and scrape off. Maybe he’ll leave them there for Yahaba as a parting gift. There’s their ‘bara’ board, covered mostly with photos of Iwaizumi flexing. Oikawa giggles, takes out his phone, and snaps a picture of the board before starting to take the photos down one by one, lips twitching as he studies each glossy print.

Once the board is empty, he opens the door to his locker, and for a second he can pretend, once again, that he’s just here early before morning practice. There are his practice clothes, the teal t-shirt folded neatly on top of white shorts.

The club room door opens, and Oikawa sighs. “Yahaba, there’s no practice this week,” he says without turning around.

Yahaba doesn’t respond, because it’s not Yahaba at the door.

“Shittykawa, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“You’re here too,” Oikawa replies, finally turning around.

Iwaizumi’s standing in the doorway, the door still ajar. The gray of the early morning slants in around him, casting his figure in a dull silhouette. “What are you doing here?” Iwaizumi asks him again.

“Just…hanging out.”

“Why?”

“Because I can.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t say anything, but walks over to stand in front of his own locker. Oikawa so badly wants to believe they’re just lingering after practice, like they used to when the club room was emptied out. He reaches for his clothes and hesitates, loath to take them out and cement that the captain’s locker is no longer his.

Iwaizumi breaks the silence. “At least you took those pictures of me off the damn bara board before you left.”

Oikawa surprises himself with a snorted-out laugh. “Are you kidding? Of course I took them down. They're mine forever. The new first-years aren’t allowed to thirst over you when I’m not here to claim my territory.”

“What are you, an alpha wolf on a power trip?” Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. Then, “You should get those alien stickers off your locker door, too. Yahaba’s going to have a hell of a time trying to take them off.”

“Good. That’ll be his first test of leadership. If he can’t get the stickers off, then he’s not allowed to be captain anymore.”

“That’s the stupidest test I’ve ever heard.”

Oikawa sniffs. He knows that. He knows he’s being petty yet again, knows he’s trying to grasp at any straw he can to keep his captainship and act like time isn’t about to move forward without him. Like the team won’t move forward without him. It’s selfish and immature and every bad quality he possesses and he _knows that_.

Iwaizumi seems to know it too. His hand slides onto Oikawa’s shoulder, just resting there, a heavy but calming weight. “They’ll be okay.”

“They will, and that makes me…” Oikawa wants to snap, but he can’t find the strength to. They’ll be fine, and Yahaba will be a great captain. He just doesn’t like the idea of them being fine _without him_. “What if they make it to nationals, Iwa-chan?”

“Then be happy for them. They’ll do Aoba Johsai proud.”

“But if they make it to nationals, then that means they don’t need me. It means they never needed me. No, no…it means they’re better _without_ me.” Gods, Oikawa hates that thought most of all. What if he’s been the one holding this team back this whole time? What if they had someone else, a different setter, a genius one, who could be the prodigy Oikawa never was? “It means I—”

“It means you gave them everything they need to be fine,” Iwaizumi interrupts him.

Oikawa sighs. “You never told me why _you’re_ here.”

“I had a feeling you’d be here.” Iwaizumi reaches into Oikawa’s locker and takes his clothes out, handing him the bundle. “When was the last time you washed these?”

“Wash them yourself,” Oikawa shoots back half-heartedly. “What does it matter, anyway? I’ll never need them again.” He snatches the bundle, shoving them into his bag with his schoolbooks, and slams his locker shut.

He gets halfway to the club room door before Iwaizumi calls out to him again. “No one expects you to be okay with it in a day, you know.”

Oikawa pauses, one hand on the doorknob. “I know,” he says, “but what does it matter if I never am?”

There’s a pause. Then: “Don’t be so dramatic, Trashykawa.”

Oikawa can’t even bring himself to laugh or protest, just letting the club room door slam behind him as he leaves for the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry
> 
> [tumblr](http://karasunonolibero.tumblr.com/)


End file.
